At Peter Woit's blog, Garret writes, "
No, but it’s wrong. The paper with Lee and Simone lays out 90% of the theory, and was published in J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 (2010). Lee and I tend to just put papers on the arxiv, but Simone thought it would be good to put it in a journal. There was no problem getting it published."

But then we go to Garrett's wikipedia page which he is known to self-edit, and there is no mention of any such paper.

There is no mention of any paper with Simone, nor the J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 (2010).

Thursday, November 25, 2010

This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in physics. Some of these problems are theoretical, meaning that existing theories seem incapable of explaining a certain observed phenomenon or experimental result. The others are experimental, meaning that there is a difficulty in creating an experiment to test a proposed theory or investigate a phenomenon in greater detail.

Theoretical problems

The following problems are either fundamental theoretical problems, or theoretical ideas which lack experimental evidence and are in search of one, or both, as most of them are. Some of these problems are strongly interrelated. For example, extra dimensions or supersymmetry may solve the hierarchy problem. It is thought that a full theory of quantum gravity should be capable of answering most of these problems (other than the Island of stability problem).

Quantum gravity, cosmology, and general relativity

How can quantum mechanics and general relativity be realized as a fully consistent quantum field theory?[1] Is spacetime fundamentally continuous or discrete? Would a consistent theory involve a force mediated by a hypothetical graviton, or be a product of a discrete structure of spacetime itself (as in loop quantum gravity)? Are there deviations from the predictions of general relativity at very small or very large scales or in other extreme circumstances that flow from a quantum gravity theory?

Do black holes produce thermal radiation, as expected on theoretical grounds? Does this radiation contain information about their inner structure, as suggested by Gauge-gravity duality, or not, as implied by Hawking's original calculation? If not, and black holes can evaporate away, what happens to the information stored in them (quantum mechanics does not provide for the destruction of information)? Or does the radiation stop at some point leaving black hole remnants? Is there another way to probe their internal structure somehow, if such a structure even exists?

Does nature have more than four spacetime dimensions? If so, what is their size? Are dimensions a fundamental property of the universe or an emergent result of other physical laws? Can we experimentally "see" evidence of higher spatial dimensions?

Are there physical reasons to expect other universes that are fundamentally non-observable? For instance: Are there quantum mechanical "alternative histories" or "many worlds"? Are there "other" universes with physical laws resulting from alternate ways of breaking the apparent symmetries of physical forces at high energies, possibly incredibly far away due to cosmic inflation? Is the use of the anthropic principle to resolve global cosmological dilemmas justified?

Can singularities not hidden behind an event horizon, known as "naked singularities", arise from realistic initial conditions, or is it possible to prove some version of the "cosmic censorship hypothesis" of Roger Penrose which proposes that this is impossible?[2] Similarly, will the closed timelike curves which arise in some solutions to the equations of general relativity (and which imply the possibility of backwards time travel) be ruled out by a theory of quantum gravity which unites general relativity with quantum mechanics, as suggested by the "chronology protection conjecture" of Stephen Hawking?

What do the phenomena that differ going forward and backwards in time tell us about the nature of time? How does time differ from space? Why are CP violations observed in certain weak force decays, but not elsewhere? Are CP violations somehow a product of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or are they a separate arrow of time? Are there exceptions to the principle of causality? Is there a single possible past?

Are there non-local phenomena in quantum physics? If they exist, are non-local phenomena limited to transfers of information, or can energy and matter also move in a non-local way? Under what circumstances are non-local phenomena observed? What does the existence or absence of non-local phenomena imply about the fundamental structure of spacetime? How does this relate to quantum entanglement? How does this elucidate the proper interpretation of the fundamental nature of quantum physics?

Is spacetime supersymmetry realized in nature? If so, what is the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking? Does supersymmetry stabilize the electroweak scale, preventing high quantum corrections? Does the lightest supersymmetric particle comprise dark matter?

Are there more than three generations of quarks and leptons? Why are there generations at all? Is there a theory that can explain the masses of particular quarks and leptons in particular generations from first principles (a theory of Yukawa couplings)?

What is the nature of the neutrinos, what are their masses, and how have they shaped the evolution of the universe? Why is there now more detectable matter than antimatter in the universe? What are the unseen forces that were present at the dawn of the universe but disappeared from view as the universe evolved?

Nuclear physics

What are the phases of strongly interacting matter, and what roles do they play in the cosmos? What is the internal landscape of the nucleons? What does QCD predict for the properties of strongly interacting matter? What governs the transition of quarks and gluons into pions and nucleons? What is the role of gluons and gluon self-interactions in nucleons and nuclei? What determines the key features of QCD, and what is their relation to the nature of gravity and spacetime?

Is there a theory which explains the values of all fundamental physical constants?[3] Is there a theory which explains why the gauge groups of the standard model are as they are, why observed space-time has 3 + 1 dimensions, and why all laws of physics are as they are? Do "fundamental physical constants" vary over time? Are any of the particles in the standard model of particle physics actually composite particles too tightly bound to observe as such at current experimental energies? Are there fundamental particles that have not yet been observed and if so which ones are they and what are their properties? Are there unobserved fundamental forces implied by a theory that explains other unsolved problems in physics?

What is the cause of the observed accelerated expansion (deSitter phase) of the Universe? Why is the energy density of the dark energy component of the same magnitude as the density of matter at present when the two evolve quite differently over time; could it be simply that we are observing at exactly the right time? Is dark energy a pure cosmological constant, or are models of quintessence such as phantom energy applicable?

Why is the distant universe so homogenous, when the Big Bang theory seems to predict measurable anisotropies of the night sky larger than those observed? Possible approaches to a solution are inflation and the variable speed of light hypothesis.

Some large features of the microwave sky, at distances of over 13 billion light years, appear to be aligned with both the motion and orientation of the Solar System. Is this due to systematic errors in processing, contamination of results by local effects, or an unexplained violation of the Copernican principle?

What is the 3-manifold of comoving space, i.e. of a comoving spatial section of the Universe, informally called the "shape" of the Universe? Neither the curvature nor the topology is presently known, though the curvature is known to be "close" to zero on observable scales. The cosmic inflation hypothesis suggests that the shape of the Universe may be unmeasurable, but since 2003, Jean-Pierre Luminet et al. and other groups have suggested that the shape of the Universe may be the Poincaré dodecahedral space. Is the shape unmeasurable, the Poincaré space, or another 3-manifold?

What is the mechanism responsible for generating neutrino masses? Is the neutrino its own antiparticle? Or could it be an antiparticle that simply cannot join and annihilate with a normal particle because of its irregular state?

According to the equivalence principle of general relativity, the ratio of inertial mass to gravitational mass of all elementary particles is unity. However, there is no experimental confirmation for many particles. In particular, we do not know what the weight of a macroscopic lump of antimatter of known mass would be.

As initially measured by the European Muon Collaboration, the three main ("valence") quarks of the proton account for about 12% of its total spin. Can the gluons that bind the quarks together, as well as the "sea" of quark pairs that are continually being created and annihilating, properly account for the rest of it?

The equations of QCD remain unsolved at energy scales relevant for describing atomic nuclei, and, among others, mainly numerical approaches seem to begin to give answers at this limit. How does QCD give rise to the physics of nuclei and nuclear constituents?

Astronomy and astrophysics

Why do the accretion discs surrounding certain astronomical objects, such as the nuclei of active galaxies, emit relativistic jets along their polar axes? Why are there Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in many accretion discs? Why does the period of these oscillations scale as the inverse of the mass of the central object? Why are there sometimes overtones, and why do these appear at different frequency ratios in different objects?

Why is it that some cosmic rays appear to possess energies that are impossibly high (the so called OMG particle), given that there are no sufficiently energetic cosmic ray sources near the Earth? Why is it that (apparently) some cosmic rays emitted by distant sources have energies above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit?[11][12]

Biological problems approached with physics

These fields of research normally belong to biology, and traditionally were not included in physics but are included here because increasingly it is physicists who are researching them using methods and tools more popular in physics research than biology.[23][24]

How do genes govern our body, withstanding different external pressures and internal stochasticity? Certain models exist for genetic processes, but we are far from understanding the whole picture, in particular in development where gene expression must be tightly regulated.

The estimated age of the universe was around 3 to 8 billion years younger than estimates of the ages of the oldest stars in our galaxy. Better estimates for the distances to the stars and the addition of dark energy into the cosmological model reconciled the age estimates.

The nature of quasars was not understood for decades[25]. They are now accepted as a type of active galaxy where the enormous energy output results from matter falling into a massive black hole in the center of the galaxy[26].

^ "The deepest and most interesting unsolved problem in solid state theory is probably the theory of the nature of glass and the glass transition." P.W. Anderson (1995), "Through the Glass Lightly", Science267: 1615

Click here, then go to the southeast to the terra incognito, which nevertheless produces a heck of a lot of papers, most of them probably wrong. A shame, because some of them are on the right path, and the way seems obscured for all the noise.

We KNOW what Q-Chro and EW are. So why not put most of the theoretical efforts there?

I don't know why not, but I believe in first-things-first and not putting the cart before the horse. In fact I'm not even sure this is where the most effort isn't being put forth, since the QG and TOE people seem to speak louder than most.

Lisi's version of E8 Lie Algebra, as far as I can tell, is an attempt to build a background upon which, with further development, the fundamental particles that we know exist today, with their exact masses, charges, and chiral behavior for those particles that behave so, will emerge. It has not accomplished its goal as of yet, but it is early and needs more work, as Lisi himself has stated right from the beginning.

I personally as a lifelong professional student have no idea where this theory is going. If it goes the way of Epicycles as its critics claim it is, then so be it. A great day will then come when the theory is disproven, as disproofs aka "falsifications" are often as famous as proven theories, as Michelson-Morley and Stern-Gerlach attest.

But if true, we are at the dawn of a really good thing.

I wish to see more people explore this theory. Its recent interest into triality is particularly exciting to me personally. The number 3, I have always felt, occurs with a bit more regularity in nature than it should. Is there something there? It will always occur more than 4 and less than 2, its neighboring integers, but seems to express itself moreso than that which would nicely fit its place in a first quadrant hyperbola bar graph of integer occurrence, regardless.

We'll see. Mathematics is beyond exciting once its frontiers are studied, and its seemingly limitless applications to Physics seem beyond the surreal. It is truly a beautiful world and E8 symmetry is likewise lovely. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Which reminds me, the picture above is not of Lisi but of the great actor Yul Brynner in "The King and I." "Men of a certain age" such as myself know this, I just remind us that young people exist who never knew of him. Youth is noone's fault, but that doesn't mean it is nevertheless an affliction. Father Time has the cure, be patient, like we all have to be as we await the further development of Lisi-Lie E8.

Business on Saturday took me to Queens, following which my wife and I decided to take in The Hall of Science, built for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair and operating ever since. I'd last visited in 1965 at the age of 9, so this was a real treat for me.

I must say that minus the IMAX, the operating budget must be one-fourth the budget for Jersey City's Liberty Science Center which is in spitting distance of The Statue of Liberty, yet it's 4 times better.

I was pleasantly reminded of that which I'd forgotten, that being The History Wall (of famous mathematicians) in the permanent Mathematics exhibit. I could have spent all day there!

History Wall

The History Wall spans the time from the 12th century (approximately the beginning of modern mathematics) to the explosive development of mathematics today. Many of the world's greatest creative mathematicians are depicted. Each is designated by a panel made up of a portrait, personal introductory notes and significant mathematical achievements. Surrounding the portraits and biography are panels and notations that illustrate the active influence on the mathematicians and the important accomplishments of the period. A computer kiosk deployed more recently brings the analysis of mathematics up to date and allows for the expansion into future generations.

Milk production at a dairy farm was low so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the farmer received the write-up, and opened it to read on the first line: "Consider a spherical cow in vacuum. . . ."[1]

In Russian, a spherical horse in vacuum [3][4] from a joke about predicting race results is well known and is widely used common parlance.

The point of the joke is that physicists will often reduce a problem to its simplest form in order to make calculations more feasible, even though such simplification may hinder the model's application to reality.

About Me

My weblog is named "Multiplication by Infinity", because "Division by Zero" was taken ... and "Division by Infinity" makes me feel very small ... Steven Colyer's Musings in Mathematical Physics and its Effects on Humanity and other Lifeforms.... And Pure Mathematics, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Experimental Physics, Engineering, Astronomy (not Cosmology so much), Space Exploration and Lunar Colonization.
I am a Rutgers 1979 Mechanical Engineer (Pi Tau Sigma) and Rutgers 1989 MBA.
("I study Politics and War that my children may study Mathematics and Philosophy."
- 2nd U.S. President John Adams)
I've already studied enough Politics and War and Economics for one lifetime, and so it's time for Math and Science